August 5, 2014

MATT VESPA: In the end, it was just a cabal of elderly Democratic women. “I know some media outlets are calling McDaniel ‘the defeated Tea Party candidate that won’t go away,’ but we shouldn’t fault his campaign for being furious about these ads; their candidate was being compared to the KKK and saying that he will go backwards on ‘race relationships between blacks and whites and other ethnic groups.’ It’s outrageous.”

Elderly Democrat women can be pretty obnoxious. And due to the loss of inhibition that sometimes comes with age, they can be amazingly forthright (far more than professional Dems would want) about their desire to use government to silence those who disagree with and subsidize those they agree with.

Who says 65 year old women can't play dirty politics? Ask Hillary and Liz Warren.

According to the Jackson Mississippi paper, Harris is a known political associate of Greg Brand. He, in turn, is known for running very dirty political campaigns, including the use of race baiting tactics to create backlashes.

YEP, but that did not stop some from jumping overboard to bash the Establishment GOP. Seems the bias got the best of some on the sound side, who sort of forgot who is the sincere source of the mess - the Democratic Party.

As was said above, I want cancelled checks. Radio buys aren't cheap and I'm just not buying it.

If a Soros funded group was claimed it would be different but a group of old bitties? Especially when the radio ads were paid for by Stern Strategic Marketing (as the link above points out). What an interesting name for a group of old women.

I am 100% in support of McDaniel running as a write-in candidate and I sincerely hope he does so. Doing so will probably cost the GOP the senate seat in MS (and probably a shot at winning control of the Senate), but there must be a lesson taught to the DC-GOP & RNC that such tactics will not be accepted.

If Cochran is allowed to win based on the tactics used against McDaniel, then we can expect those tactics to be used again, and again, and again against non-establishment Republicans. The establishment GOP and Cochran must pay a price.

Mississippi voter here. I would 100% write in McDaniel if I could, but Mississippi law does not count write-ins unless one of the candidates died after ballots were printed. Yeah, I know there is a spot for write-ins on paper ballots and voting machines, but it's only counted if you have a dead guy/gal on the list.

There is not as much divide among Dem and Repub leadership in the state as people might think. Trent Lott, our former U.S. Senate Majority Leader (God help us) was Dickie Scruggs' brother-in-law -- Scruggs was one of the biggest Dem donors at federal and state level before he went to jail for bribing a state judge to fix a court case for him -- his home cookin' got a little too hot in that one. The political "leaders" of these two parties don't give a damn about us, and they work together when it is in the interest of both. Cochran will be doing some payback if and when he gets in.

And we're getting the story of the little old women from the Democrat Party because the Barbours are feeling the heat. The internet and talk radio are changing the ability of politicians, even in Mississippi, to say one thing and do another, like the Repub Senators' little charade (I see you, Cochran, Cornyn, et al.) of voting FOR cloture to allow a bill to the floor and then voting AGAINST the bill, so they can tell the folks back home "I was agin it!"

They will use whatever works whenever needed regardless. A strategy of punishment is juvenile. Although, in this particular case it's not a given that McDaniel would lose. Even better were he to challenge the results and win.

Are you kidding? Give the Senate back to Reid and Obama? Utterly nutty, completely mindless in the face of the dire state of the situation today.

LESSONs taught? The same folly was peddled prior 2006, to "lay down" for Nancy Pelosi. Remember who bragged about this after this tragic folly was completed? Democratic Partisans boldly boasted having fooled Conservatives into not voting to give the Democrats control of the House and Senate. A massive mistake which not only led to Pelosi, Reid, Obama to give us Obamacare, but also which helped foster the regretful push to have a Moderate MAVERICK on the 2008 ticket.

You have never answered as to what you felt about "moderate" Repubs voting for the other guy in 6 senate elections over the last two cycles. They voted in 12 - 20% range of total votes cast. In all cases it was enough to swing the election for the dim. Angle vs Reed was one of those elections.

You have a lot to say about conservatives thinking about giving the bird to the mainstream pubs but still waiting for an answer as to why we don't have 52 repub senators right now.

Screw 'em. How is electing a warmed-over bunch of Republican eunuchs in the Senate going to "save" this country from Obama? This country is lost, these institutions are corrupted beyond redemption. I will take a pass on pretending that by continuing to participate in this farce, somehow, all will be well.

Eliminating RINOs in the primary, where possible, and Democrats in the general, where possible, does offer a chance of postponing the demise. But perhaps you have something more important to do on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Ultimately it will take action by the States to devolve power from 'corrupted beyond redemption' DC.

Again, I ask, what lesson did we teach in 2004 when we re-elected the Congress that did the first new Federal entitlement since Johnson. We taught that medical goodies bought votes.

six years later we got Obamacare. If the GOP had instead removed Federal interference from medical care (say it's wartime policy of giving tax favored status to employer provided insurance) would the Dems have had an easier or harder time arguing for an expanded Federal role.

Without eliminating anyone from leadership today who was in leadership in 2006 (and the Speaker and the Minority Leader both were) the GOP has no credibility that they will govern in a way substantively different enough from the Democrats to change the country's course. Instead they will replace Obamacare with Boenhercare and funnel money to their corporate buddies instead of the Democrats.

The stupid is deep in this one (Gee, thanks for electing Obama twice. Teach another lesson now.)

2008: Obama 69 + million votes verses McCain 59 million votes2012 Obama 65.8 million votes verses Romney 61.9 million votes.No honest analyses of the election shows that enough conservatives sat home to achieve this type of results. The only voters that sat out the 2012 election were all one and done democrats that voted for Obama in 2008.Quit spreading the lie about the 2008 and 2012 elections.

"The only voters that sat out the 2012 election were all one and done democrats that voted for Obama in 2008."Citation please.

None of the 'do not vote for RINOs that will show them' jamokes can ever explain how joining the 40% or Americans who do not vote will benefit any but the ruling elite. I say they would love it were that 95%. I eagerly await enlightenment.

Thank you for your candor. How bad does bad have to get before preventing the One Party from controlling the Federal Gubmint become important? I'm getting the feeling that people with your attitude towards politics are largely satisfied with the way things are and don't see any danger in continuing down this twisted pathway. Which makes me wonder how committed you are to Conservatism, TEA Party principles, and preserving the Union as opposed to Proving That You Are Right.

People showed up to vote in the primary and Thad Cochran won. Do you think that if TEA Party McDaniel had won that Cochran would consider running as a write-in in the general election, knowing it would guarantee a Democrat victory?

Teaching people a lesson is something you do on an elementary school playground. Adults protect the Nation.

Given what I consider the single most important danger to the Republic: the expansion of the Federal Government to the point where the phrase "don't make a Federal case of it" is something from old movies and every day after every station when I ride the train to work I hear the engineer point out that "by FEDERAL LAW seats near the door are reserved to the elderly and handicapped" for most of my adult life One Party has controlled the Federal Government in terms of policy.

Even with a uniform GOP control of the elective branches we got expansion of Federal law. When I point this out I get the handy excuse of not having a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. That might excuse a failure to roll anything back but how does that explain their move to expand things.

We hear about 100 Conservative Union ratings yet somehow enough members of the GOP vote in the Senate to let the Dems push through their ideas. The supposedly great white hope of conservatives in the GOP has chosen as his policy priorities amnesty and the college "rape epidemic" and not eliminating the expanded Federal role in day to day life (the later is clearly a new expansion). The Speaker of the House has said the only way to get rid of the huge Democrat expansion of the Federal role in medical care is not to return to the status quo ante in terms of the Federal role much less reduce it (and believe me the status quo ante was problematic) but to replace the Democrat expansion with a GOP expansion.

Then we should add in how the GOP tends to react those who do press for a reduction in the Federal role, even when that individual is a sitting Senator.

When it comes to domestic policy my answer to your "how bad does bad have to get" is "why is GOP over spending and regulation not bad but the same ends by the Democrats is?". I am not happy with the way things are and consider continuing down this twisted pathway suicide. However, I see no evidence the majority of the GOP's office holders see any danger in continuing down this path but see plenty of danger, to their perks, of change.

Holding out Thad Cochran as an example of what will save us from Democrats tells me people who claim that merely want my vote but have no interest in changing anything.

I know I've answered this several times but why not (in fact, I'm pretty sure I've given it to you specifically): work with existing GOP office holders to replicate the founding of the GOP out of the Whigs to provide a new party that will displace one of the major parties.

The old saw about American politics is that third parties are a perennial loser and that is true except once, the GOP itself.

The genius of the GOP's creation was that a combination of grassroots and sitting Whig office holders creating the new party. That is the path to a GOP replacement.

Ideally it would be in an odd year (I suspect the first window will be in 2017 when a GOP President and Congress "fix" Obamacare instead of repealing it) that they would hold the first convention and caucus separately in Congress. The year would be spent organizing for the following Congressional and state legislative elections (forget executive initially beyond any sitting governors running for re-election) with a focus on states where office holders are running for re-election under the new party label. In fact, in districts in states where the combination of voting base and election law would mean a very good shot at a hold it might be worth having House members and legislators who are founders run again.

The big downside to this, as any third party strategy, would be it would cede Democrats control for at least one cycle. However, it is clear the GOP will not reverse course so failure would mean acceleration to the end we're heading to now. Given it would at worst lead to the same end and at best lead to a reversal it is a strategy to examine.

And if old comatose Thad's seat is number 51 then his butt may well postpone some bad stuff.

Upon what evidence do you conclude that 51 GOP Senators will do anything beyond possibly affect the shape of the SCUS. Given the history of GOP votes for Obama nominees in the Senate and the history of drift in terms of ideology of recent SCUS appointees of both parties how different do you think a new "moderate" Obama justice will be compared to a new liberal Obama justice? How less likely to crumble when called racist for opposing Obama's policies will a GOP Senate be than the GOP House.

I will not contend there is absolutely no difference between the parties especially in foreign policy but even in domestic policy. However, at this point I believe that without reversing course the US will complete it's trip to default and breakdown of the rule of law within my lifetime even if we restored the GOP governing philosophy that held from 2003 to 2007 when they held all elective branches. For a sense of time I figure at the outside I have 25 years remaining in my lifespan. So, in terms of preventing national default and collapse within two decades I think the GOP as currently constituted is no different than the Democrats. If we cannot change or replace the current GOP leadership and policy trends (as opposed to their nominal platform) all voting does is pencil in the date of default differently. The time for "vote GOP because it will postpone the inevitable" is past and all the checks you and I and Tired Old and all of us who voted GOP as "well not Democrats" and "when we have the majority we'll change direction" are now due. How are we going to cover them? (show less)

Curmudgeon, what you say is all true, but there remains the question, what is the threat facing the Republic? More specifically, who is to be counted in the ranks of threat? Based on what he did in Mississippi, reasonable, patriotic folks can conclude that Cochran is as much a threat as the democrat; indeed, one can argue that Cochran is even more dangerous. At least the democrat is not hiding his true colors. If the democrats are the tumor, Cochrans are the lymph system feeding it. All of it has to go to protect the Republic.

From the content, we know the ad makers are liars and totally ruthless about their lying.

So if someone claims to have been behind the ads, we cannot take anything they claim at face value. Why would these women want to come out now and admit they made the ads? The only benefit is to Thad, same as before, with perfect timing. Why would a bunch of democrats want to restore GOP turnout before the general election?

Tea Party model Reagan went into the ghetto and tweeked Jimma about not doing enough for Afro-Americans. If McDaniel - and other Tea Party candidates followed that model the "racist" smear, which the left so desperately wants to hang on anyone advocating smaller government, would be short circuited at the start. Tea Party candidates need to learn to be candidates first. Their philosophy has a lot of advantages for the black community - if they just tryed to use it.

I never understood open primaries. But really, everyone assumes that all black voters who voted in the runoff voted against McDaniel. We have to be careful to focus on the breaking of the law, not the mudslinging or any sleazy, legal tactics. There are ONLY two types of elections: Fraudulent and non-fraudulent. If McDaniel has demonstrated significant numbers of ILLEGAL votes, then this should get adjudicated, maybe subject to a repeat. I hope McDaniel never, never gives up on challenging the illegal votes, but quiets down on any bitching about votes he does not like that are LEGAL.

InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.